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NASA: Mars’ Gale Crater held an enormous lake for tens of millions of years

People have been speculating about water on Mars for tons of of years, and now because of the Curiosity rover we’re getting a greater sense of how moist the Pink Planet was. NASA revealed in the present day that the Gale Crater, the ninety six-mile extensive patch of land Curiosity has been exploring since 2012, held a big lake mattress for tens of tens of millions of years. What’s extra, the company discovered that the three-mile excessive Mount Sharp, which sits in the midst of the crater, was doubtless shaped by sediment deposits from the lake. The large takeaway? Mars was possible heat sufficient to deal with liquid water for lengthy durations of time — maybe even lengthy sufficient for all times to type. “If our speculation for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that heat and moist circumstances have been transient, native, or solely underground on Mars,” stated Ashwin Vasvada, NASA’s Curiosity deputy challenge scientist. The one drawback now’s that we nonetheless do not understand how the Martian environment supported such a moist setting.

Curiosity beforehand discovered proof of “vigorous” waterflow, which fueled lengthy-held hypothesis about water’s presence on Mars. NASA is now focusing the rover’s efforts on on the bottom layers of Mount Sharp, which might give us a greater sense of the way it was shaped. The findings will even assist NASA when planning for future missions to hunt out proof of life on Mars, and probably even have an effect on how the company approaches manned missions within the 2030s.